Other Worlds
by slasher454
Summary: Hermione and Theodore Nott are in a relationship. A series of sexy, angsty, and/or frustrating vignettes that eventually tell a story. Rated M for a reason.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Don't own 'em.

**Description:** Hermione & Theodore are in a relationship. What's the context? You decide.

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Theodore liked being bossed around.

Perhaps it was because his mother had died when he was so young and still desperately needed one, or because his father was so reticent and emotionally unavailable. Perhaps he was a bit of a masochist. Wasn't that some sort of prerequisite for becoming a Death Eater?

But, perhaps, _perhaps_ he was using his Slytherin powers of cunning and deception to lull her into compliance with the pretense of power.

Because Hermione _liked_ being bossy.

She was always respectful in public, but when they were alone, she was swotty and saucy and utterly officious. And he ate her up with a grin on his face.

With her polish tipped toes on his chest, she pushed him back down the bed when he began to crawl up toward her.

"You aren't finished," she dictated archly.

He smoothed his hand up the inside of her bare leg, inching toward the one place he could go to make her whimper and beg.

"How much longer?" he asked, his submission laced with the promise of a long, hard fuck.

She answered in that patronizing tone of hers that drove him wild with need. "Until I tell you to stop, Theodore, and not a moment before."

He slipped her toes back into his mouth and she groaned softly as the wet heat of his mouth engulfed the sensitive digits. Before Theo, she had never known, never guessed, never imagined that such a thing could feel so good. Feet were dirty and sweaty and ugly, and it was unseemly to think of them as erotic, more so to demand that ones lover acknowledge them as such. But he wasn't a normal sort of lover, and part of her demanded she defy and disrespect him. Forcing him to lick her feet felt good in more ways than one.

What sort of pervert had she become?

_A well sated one_, she thought as his tongue slid between her third and fourth toe before he closed his mouth around each in turn and sucked in slow, swirling strokes.

Theodore was _very_ good with his tongue.

He circled and nibbled and ran the slick muscle down the cleft in the ball of her foot, generously laving her arch. With his free hand, he stroked the inside of her thigh, the tips of his fingers just grazing her quim.

He groaned. She was wet. So very wet.

The vibrations of his groan in combination with his sucking and licking caused her to arch up off the bed.

"Now, Theo," she ordered, "Fuck me now."

He needed no further instruction or enticement. He crawled up between her legs, and lifted them over his forearms. She reached between them and grasped him, placing him at her entrance and tilting her hips to urge him to move. To sink, to push, to stretch, and fill, and stroke, and grind her into oblivion.

He gripped her hips as he pulled her to him, slipping gracefully into her depths. He began with long deep strokes, letting her feel every inch of him. He in turn could feel every bit of her gripping him, and it was driving him mad with the desire to pound his lust into her. Oh, but it would end far too soon.

Resisting his baser urges, he withdrew, wrenching a growl of objection from her. Before she could begin to tell him where to shove it, quite literally, he rubbed the tip of his length along her quim, giving ample attention to that sweet little bud. "Oh," she sighed in pleasant realization.

"_Oh_," he mocked with a smug grin.

She scowled at his cheek and turned up her hips in demand for more contact. He obliged, taking breaks to dip into her and draw out her moisture before coming back to rub and swirl. Her face was flushed with the evidence of her pleasure, and her legs began to tremble and her quim began to gush. She was ready. He slipped back into her and began moving in quick strong, strokes, their bodies meeting, colliding, crashing, slapping together, slick with sweat. The air around them was soon thick with the scent of sex and the tingles of extemporaneous magic. It radiated from them both as they panted and gnashed and sought out their pleasure.

She felt lightheaded, her senses consumed, dominated by him. By the grip of his hands, the scent of his body, the sound of his impassioned grunting, his stormy gaze, and the relentless, gratifying stroke of him driving deep into her body.

She was close, so close now. He dropped down to cover her body with his, allowing her to wrap her legs high around his waist and press against him tightly. Leaning on his elbows, he cradled her head as he kissed her deep and moved against her in that way that always made her gasp, and arch, and shatter around him.

She was panting now, her hands gripping his arse, squeezing in the rhythm she needed to achieve her release. He followed obediently, tilting his hips to give her more contact. She let out a startled "Oh!" as it always seemed to come upon her suddenly. She gripped him tight, so tight, and panted a drawn out, shuddering whimper. "Oh!" And she clenched, and gushed, and tugged him with her into mindless bliss.

Sweaty, exhausted, and thoroughly sated, they curled up together and lay to catch their breath, drifting peacefully through reflections of their passions and imaginary worlds. Worlds of happiness. Worlds of safety and unencumbered relationships. Worlds of choice and truth and fairness and love.

Fantasy worlds.

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Finite Incantatum

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**A/N:** The name of this vignette is Other Worlds, and if you liked it, please hit the button and tell me so. I have more of these, just not sure if there's much market for them. Also, cyber hugs and cookies to the reviewers who can guess correctly the backstory.


	2. Crimson Conquest

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own them.

**Summary:** if you read the other second chapter I posted, you know what's going on for sure. It felt a bit premature to post that part, so I took it down and decided to continue here.

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She looks to admire today's offering.

Almond blossoms for hope and vigilance, Azaleas for fragile and ephemeral passion, white heather for protection.

She pulls a rose from the bouquet and twirls it between her fingers, its red petals sweetly radiant.

_Love, desire, courage. _

But, she is her mother's girl and knows her roses.

"Crimson Conquest?" she names the bloom in question, dragging the petals across his fine, smooth cheek.

He is still ever the delicate, aristocratic looking boy he was at school. His demeanor hasn't changed much, either. He reflects quietly on the name of the flower and the woman he has plucked it for.

"Yes," he answers with placid confidence.

Her eyes flash at him. He can really only mean one thing. She is the crimson lion, and there is really little doubt as to who the conqueror here is. She returns the bloom to its place in the collective and takes what could appear to others as a bored looking turn about the room.

He knows better.

She is agitated, feeling the pressure of the bending of wills, though long cut, still supple and green with unremitting strength.

She crosses in front of the window, the sunlight infusing her chestnut curls with a golden glow. Memories of sun speckled shoulders with the soft sheen of muggy days and her laughter ringing out across the grounds constrict his chest until he worries something inside might break. Perhaps it already has. He lowers himself to the settee and beckons her with a voice that betrays nothing of his distraction.

"Do not stir so. Sit with me."

She eyes him hard, her look is ravenous as though she could and would eviscerate him with glee and devour him whole.

"Do not stir?" she repeats questioningly, her voice lilting with dangerous amusement. He always chooses his words so carefully. "But you have stirred me."

She mocks him, he is sure.

He elegantly acquiesces.

"Then I have done my duty. Please," he entreats, "sit with me."

His plea is empowering, soothing. The part of her that would deny him appeased, she slowly moves toward him. His dark eyes follow her progress and his pulse quickens as she gathers the folds of her robes and lifts them as she lowers herself onto his lap. Never the one to be told what to do, she settles herself against him instead of beside him.

He dares not smile nor breathe his excitement. It would not do to show his pleasure, lest she pull away just as quickly as she has come to him. She thrills in teasing and spurning him. He sits still beneath her, his discreetly desperate eyes casting for hope in the tempestuous sea of her gaze.

Finally, her eyes soften and her hands move from his shoulders to twine in his hair, her lips parting in a longing sigh.

Glory!

She relents. She _has_ missed him.

He is to be punished for it, he knows, but it is a welcome sentence.

Her kiss is soft and inviting. He remains submissive.

"Your kiss is hesitant," she accuses. "Have your lips found better fare elsewhere?"

"My lips have sought no other," he breathes shallowly as his chest constricts reflexively around his heart.

"Though others they have found," she accuses again. "Like mine …"

Expectant preparation never softens her blows.

He offers himself freely for the gutting. "Better lips than mine?"

She smiles. Heartless witch!

"Different," she answers lightly.

"Different," he repeats in a voice of quiet contemplation.

She takes him by surprise, always by surprise. Her mouth is eager and he is all hunger and exposed nerves. His body reacts even as his heart is breaking and his mind races. Whose lips have taken hers? Whose mouth has tasted and hands touched?

"Who?" he asks, unable to restrain himself any longer, pulling away from her.

She smiles again. The same smile. That calm, beautiful smile that belies the rows of jagged little teeth within. "You first," she offers.

"I told you," he insists in earnest, "there has been no other. I have _wanted_ no other."

"Nor have I," she returns, leaning in to take his lips once more. His lips are firm, and rounded in shock. She has been taken unwillingly?

"Who," he demands, his insides awash with the electric pain of the thought of her subjugated and abused.

She sighs resignedly, and presses her nose into the crook of his neck. His heart hammers painfully and he stifles the urge to grasp her shoulders and shake the name out of her. With restrained agony and impatience, he waits on her reply.

"I was comforting Luna," she says softly. "She took it the wrong way."

The air becomes breathable and his lungs welcomed it, but he refuses to risk her mocking or rebellion by allowing his arms to tighten around her in his relief. She is toying with him. Always, she is toying with him. He chooses to take her trick as a confession and withholds absolution as she attempts to take his lips once more.

"I'm not supposed to be angry because it was another girl?" he asks darkly.

She pulls back and eyes him mutinously. "I didn't want her to kiss me!"

"But you kissed her back," he accuses evenly.

"I didn't want to be rude or hurtful," she blushes.

"Not to her," he rejoins sullenly. Before she can rebut with some new hurtful jibe he asks, "Did you like it?"

She gapes at him incredulously, her high color deepening further still.

"You said it was different. Different good or different bad? Did she touch you? Did she make you wet?" he prods mercilessly.

She huffs a scandalized breath.

He suppresses his grin and eyes her suspiciously. "Show me what she did."

She is forced to suppress her own shy grin as she complies and leans in slowly to take his lips. Her lips are soft, pliant, and parted just slightly as they connect with his. He holds still, playing the part of the unwilling yet curious recipient, though she knows she was not so unwilling and far more curious.

With firm but gentle hands, she tips his head back and threads her fingers through his hair, cradling his head just so. He opens his mouth to her possession and as her tongue slides along his, she runs her nails gently across his scalp and down the back of his neck. She is rewarded with a low moan, and withholds her wry grin as she recalls making a very similar noise herself.

His kiss is wet and eager as her hands tug and massage, smoothing along his neck, dragging her nails from his nape to just under his ears, hitting that sensitive spot with the gentlest touch. He moans again as he raises his hips to press more firmly against her. He is very aroused and it takes much of her will not to grind back against him. His hands travel up her back, finding and caressing the same places she had so expertly manipulated on him. She sighs into his mouth and drags her nails down his chest, parting his robe and finding and massaging his nipples through his shirt. He likes this very much and she can feel him pulse against her as she slips her fingers along his buttons, popping them open one by one. When she gets as far as his navel she stops and parts the material to reveal his smooth, fair chest and already puckered nipples to her touch. She runs the backs of her fingers from his collar bone to his waist and drags her nails back up. His kiss becomes erratic and he groans into her mouth as her fingers find his nipples and tease them. Just a few short plucks and rolls and she removes herself from his lap. His mouth is agape in bewilderment and the throes of an unfinished kiss.

"What next?" he asks huskily.

"Nothing," she sighs pleasantly. "That was when I remembered."

"Remembered what?" he asks a bit too hopefully.

"I'm not into girls," she replies nonchalantly and turns away with a saucy flip of her hair.

It is difficult to portray his own insouciance when inside he is so needy and possessive. It is difficult not to draw her in and take her here and now, but she is not to be possessed in that way. Not now. Not ever.

She is indomitable. He will continue to wait, to effect and entice, to conspire and entreat, for her to come to him once more. Hopefully he will not have to wait long.

His body aches. His will is forfeit, his heart her possession, her victory.

Her crimson conquest.

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**A/N:** Yes? No?


	3. Subterfuge

**Disclaimer:** Still not my characters and whatnots. Thank you for letting me play with them, JKR :)

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It wasn't love.

It couldn't be. How perverse to even think it.

His voice was not beautiful. It was his words she liked. Cloying. Soothing. Empowering. She liked to hear him talk because of what he said, not how he said it.

His eyes were not deep, or pretty, or mesmerizing. They were dark, and hunted, and ever searching. Ever searching, because what he looked for he would never find. Not really.

She doesn't adore him, no matter how often she smothers him in kisses.

It's a trick. A mind game. Subterfuge.

This is a war, after all, and people have to do what they can to survive and win.

And Death Eaters don't deserve to be loved.

The first time she saw his mark, it piqued her curiosity, not her fear response as he had assumed it would. She grabbed his forearm, much to his surprise, and pulled him close for a thorough inspection.

She'd never seen one close up before. His skin was still raised and tender looking, and he had sucked in a shuddering breath when she gently traced the tip of her finger along the mouth of the skull, then down the snake protruding from it.

"It's a bit homoerotic, isn't it?" she had mused out loud.

Shocked by her whimsical irreverence, he had pulled his arm back and nearly began to retreat from her when he remembered what he came for.

"Aren't you afraid?" he had asked darkly.

"Afraid of what? _You_?" she had asked in that same musing tone. "You aren't going to hurt me, Rabbit. You're not the type and we both know it."

Her audacity to use that nickname, and to use it with such playful ease as opposed to the derisive scorn he was used to, was what set the tone for their entire relationship. Because he wasn't the type, as she had said, and it seemed clear to her then that he had ached for someone to finally recognize that.

But living in the dark, forced to do dark things, changes people.

She couldn't really be sure what he was capable of now, and she felt a faint stab of shame when she looked back on her own deeds.

Death Eaters held no exclusive claim on darkness. No one did.

And now he had been gone a long time, and she didn't know where, or for what, only that she missed him and worried that he may never return to her. That she may never again hear his voice, or gaze into his eyes.

It wasn't just sick, and wrong, it was _traitorous_ to feel this way.

Allowing her mind to follow this line of thought was something she had become adept at blocking and denying. It wasn't real, but a part she played.

A trick. A mind game. Subterfuge.

She moved to the door at the tell-tale pop of his apparation, clear and crisp, yet so unassuming and reserved compared all the others. It is another wonder of magic that even the sound one makes while apparating can be so individual.

Harry's was impatient, if such a thing was possible to hear. Luna's has a slight ring to it, announcing her whimsy wherever she went. Fred and George moved about the world like a traveling game of exploding snap. Voldemort's sounded like a clap of thunder every time, and had a way of reverberating in the chests of those present in the most stirring way. It was a reminder of how powerful he was, she knew, and it was an excellent juxtaposition for how powerful Dumbledore was. Because Albus' apparation had, at times, been so quiet as to resemble the bursting of a soap bubble.

It took great power and skill for Voldemort to alert and effect so many with each exit and entry, but what did it take to restrain the sound so that only those closest to you knew you were coming and going?

Theodore's subdued entrances and departures reminded her of Dumbledore's, and she mused on telling him from time to time, but no need to give the boy a big head. He swelled so easily and charmingly that it was a danger to both of them to indulge him so.

She did not, could not, suppress her joy at seeing him now. But her smiles put him on guard as much as they delighted him. And this pleased her, too.

"You have news," she stated factually, taking in his incisive eyes and stiff posture as she took and hung his cloak.

"I have," he replied, his tone soft. Soft enough to be alarming. "Would you like to hear it?" he continued.

His quiet confidence bordered on arrogance. It was so unlike him. Her heart beat a bit faster and she closed the gap between them, twining her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. But his soft, submissive mouth was demanding, insistent, and domineering today.

She pulled away and looked at him, searching his eyes for the meaning behind his audacious kiss.

His eyes gave up nothing. His news must be big for him to stand before her so, and she was suddenly unsure if she wanted to hear his news.

"What do you want?" she asked coyly, plucking at his shirt buttons. "To talk or to fuck?"

"Both," he smirked, and pulled her closer, "but not all at once."

She allowed his assertive exploration and maneuvers to continue without protest, or at least not much at any rate. He practically tore her robes from her body while he lead her to the bed, eliciting surprised gasps and gushes of arousal. He wore his confidence well. She might even have acknowledged her own enjoyment of his dominant behaviour somewhere deep inside, but when it came to intercourse with him, she was in charge. She did not relent when he attempted to penetrate her without first paying the toll, it didn't matter how wet he had already made her. She used her knee against his chest to stop his progress and he pried it away.

She winced at his iron grip on her ankle and scowled deeply at him.

"Let go of me, you brute!" she hissed. "Let go and get out if you can't behave like a gentleman!"

"If you would behave like a lady …" he began, only to be met with a resounding slap.

His stunned eyes met her challenging smirk, his flare of anger just barely restrained.

"I've never behaved like a lady before," she said with a wry tone and a smile to match, "but if you like it so, I wouldn't mind slapping you for your indecency more often."

He felt a faint brush of relief and amusement at her words, but the sting of his face and pride were too much, and he continued to stare at her intensely.

Her increasingly reddened hand print on his stricken face flashed a warning, reminding her of a "do not walk" sign on a perilously busy muggle street. Even _she_ could not ignore the damage done.

Neither of them had ever struck the other before.

She slowly reached out and brushed her fingers over his injured flesh and asked with repentant tenderness, "Did I hurt you, Rabbit? I didn't mean to. I was only playing."

His anger tensed muscles relaxed minutely, and she leaned forward to brush her lips over his.

"You weren't playing," he accused sullenly, avoiding her kiss. "You enjoy hurting me."

"I enjoy being in charge," she rejoined. "You've known that since we were eleven."

"You don't have to put me down to be in charge," he argued petulantly.

"Don't whinge, Theodore, I said I was sorry," she huffed.

"No, you _didn't_," he began accusingly.

"Well, I have now," she bit out, her teeth now on edge. "I'm sorry, I won't ever do it again."

"No," he agreed, "you won't."

He quickly pinned her beneath him, capturing her hands and binding them to the headboard.

Her panicked eyes searched his for his intention. It surprised her how much it appeared to pain him to see such wariness in her eyes. She should have known. He had never, _would_ never, hurt her. Hadn't he proven that much time and time again?

"You're going to keep your hands to yourself until you learn to play nice," he informed her with a seductive tone and mischievous smile.

"Forever then?" she teased, "Won't you miss them?"

His grin turned wicked. "Not as much as you will, I think."

She soon writhed wretchedly beneath his ministrations. His mouth and hands everywhere but just where she wanted them. She sweated and trembled and ached. It was a testament to how badly he wanted to torment and control her, because he had never been one for this much foreplay.

"Theo, now," she cried, arching up to grind against him.

"I'm not taking orders tonight, Kitten," he growled huskily, nuzzling her breast. "If you want me, you'll have to ask nice."

Her face twisted to a half scowl, half pout. "You're going to make me beg," she accused.

He released her nipple with a soft pop and kissed his way down her body. "I didn't say that," he answered silkily. "Why do you always assume the worst of me?"

"Becausssse," she shuddered, "turn about … is fair play."

Her admission provoked another grin from him.

"Ask me," he whispered against her thigh.

"_Theo_," she whimpered pitifully.

"Ask me," he repeated, now breathing hot against her core.

"Will you?" she asked doubtfully.

"Will I what?" he returned softly.

"Kiss me?"

His mouth finally closed around its target, and she held as still as possible so as not to give him any cause to stop. His circling, flickering tongue manipulated her quickly and easily to the edge of orgasm. His eyes darted up to find her looking down on him, her hands twisting in the bindings, muscles taut and trembling. Her brow was furrowed in concentration and her mouth was rounded in the agony of suspense, her bliss held just out of her reach. Held by him, and he reveled in his power enough to push her farther still until she cried out in ecstasy, gasping, and quaking in his possession.

She spread her thighs to release her grip on him and her eyes begged him to slide up and finish this game. To her delight, he answered her silent call and kissed his way up her body, up her throat, along her jaw, stopping just short of her mouth where he paused and waited.

"Will you?" she asked again, her submissive gaze fluttering from his eyes to his lips.

He answered her with the tender passion she had grown to expect and delight in. His mouth so soft and pliant, matching her pace, meeting her move for move. She sighed, and lifted her legs to encircle his waist. He pulled away from their kiss to smirk at her.

"Now, now, Pet, you didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" he teased. "You're going to have to ask for _that_, too."

She sighed resignedly and tilted her hips so they could both feel how close they were to joining. "_Pleeeeease?_" she asked in a exaggerated whine.

"Please what?" he grinned, positioning himself at her entrance.

"_Fuck me_," she finished with lascivious enunciation. "Please, _fuck me_, Theodore."

But she needn't have asked a second time, nor did she need to ask for anything else. He read her every whimper and sigh, each tilt of her hips and twist of her legs. He released her hands and reveled in the way she immediately held him tighter to her.

He followed her lead and she eagerly returned the favor, responding in all the ways he liked best, gripping and grinding and grunting until they both broke apart.

Feeling ridiculously pleased with him, she cuddled up to him, holding him with an arm and leg possessively. He gave her a peck on her forehead, brushing away her sweat dampened curls.

"Your news now," she said softly. She didn't ask. She couldn't _ask_. Not for this.

He sighed, and said nonchalantly, "Lucius Malfoy is dead."

She leaned up and eyed him in shock.

"He killed himself, or so the story goes," he continued airily, suppressing a smile.

"Narcissa and Draco?" she asked, her heart hammering.

"Gone. No one knows where," he replied, his rebellious mouth twisting in a satisfied grin. This was not the news she expected, if she even expected good news at all.

"Gone, defected? Untraceable? Even for _him_?" she asked.

"That is what I hear," he answered, enjoying this too much for either of their good.

"But you don't _know_," she half asked, half stated.

"I know that he's dead," he replied, "because I was there when the body was discovered, Draught of Death smoking in his cauldron, and a note clutched to his chest."

"What did it read?" she asked eagerly.

"I don't know. It was addressed to _him_. No one else dared touch it."

She imagined Lucius arranging for his wife and son to flee, casting fidelius, and taking his own life to protect their secret forever, and felt a faint stab of pity for them all. He was a horrible man, she reminded herself, but there must have been some innate goodness in him to be capable of such devotion.

_Love._

Such a beautiful, frightening, treacherous condition.

Theodore turned on his side to face her and she shifted the weight of her leg, still wrapped around him, to allow him to press against her and hold her tight. With arms and legs and lips she held him. She held him sick. She held him elated. She held him treacherously.

This was not love.

How outrageous.

It was a trick. A mind game. _Subterfuge_.

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**A/N:** So, no one seemed to like the last chapter, which I admit was very different in style and tone from the first. So, let me explain. The first story is told mostly from Hermione's perspective, brash and straightforward. The second vignette is from from Theo's, mired in subtext and double meanings, the way I like to imagine his Slytherin mind works.

This little snapshot is mostly from Hermione again, and if you guys let me know that you're actually interested in where this is going, the next one will likely be from Theo. I have about a dozen sketches for this series, and most of them are from Hermione. But Theo's pov is important, too.

I dunno. Is anyone interested in more?


	4. In Dreams

**Disclaimer:** JKR is Queen and owns all.

**Summary:** Another day in the life, from Theo's perspective (mostly, I tried to shut Hermione up, but you know how that girl is ...)

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He watches her sleep, peacefully.

The rhythm of her breathing is soothing, hypnotic, and he looses track of time watching her chest fill, swell, rise up gently and fall again. It is late, or perhaps it is early. He absently finds his breaths coming in close with hers and attempts to match her, but his heart beats too fast.

His need is always greater than hers.

Her eyelids flutter as her dream moves her. He wonders what visions she sees in this place he cannot follow. Does she see him? Is he in the background, soft, out of focus, but ever present, as she is, constantly, in his mind?

She sighs, ruffling the curls that have fallen in her face. It must be a pleasant dream. He gently pushes back spiraled locks to kiss her forehead, and her placid face crumples slightly.

"Don't," she complains.

"Don't what?" he returns quietly, removing his hand and backing away slightly.

"Don't go yet." She opens her sleepy eyes to be sure her order is followed.

He relaxes slightly. He doesn't want to go.

He never _wants_ to go.

"Will you miss me?" he asks in a teasing tone, though he can't help but hang for her answer.

"You know I will. Bastard," she adds in an ironic mutter.

He didn't know, but she takes it for granted. She takes so much for granted, but he never holds it against her, even when she's wrong.

Especially when she's wrong.

"Tell me about your dream," he requests softly. "Was it a nice one?"

She sighs lazily and arches her back, arms slung over her head. "I dreamt of Hogwarts."

"Was I there?" he asks, then curses himself silently. Even he couldn't avoid the needy plea in his voice.

She sighs impatiently, "You were."

Propping herself up on her elbow, she turns to study him. He's naked beside her, painfully exposed beneath the shrewdness of her gaze. Her eyes flick over him, taking him in anew though she's seen him in all his hopeless inadequacies before. Wiry arms, flat chest, boney hips. His left arm rests against her, black charred flesh against angel white. He pulls his arm away, as though the evil may seep through and mar her soul as it has his.

"Not yet," she says with some impatience, assuming he is making his inevitable exit.

She captures his arm and tucks herself under it, effectively pinning him back to the bed. Her fingers graze his chest as she pulls the sheet up around them both. And she holds him tight. So tight. If he had a bit less substance to him, he might have broken under the pressure by now.

He submits easily, relaxing into her. Seemingly pleased with their physical arrangement, she relaxes as well.

"I miss the castle," she continues distantly after a while. "I miss the busy halls, the dorms, the portraits, and even the ghosts." She pauses, lost in a sea of memories, and he is lost with her. Faces pass by him in the halls, some friends, some enemies, some he never knew at all. Or ever will now.

"Well, most of them," she finishes with a sigh.

"I miss it, too," he admits freely. "The grounds, the library, the unbreachable feeling of the Slytherin common room."

"Unbreachable isn't a word," she corrects. The swot.

"No," he agrees. "It's a feeling." A feeling he never knew until Hogwarts, and has not known since. And will never know again, perhaps.

"You felt safe down there," she replies a bit petulantly. "The one place in the castle I would have been most uncomfortable and unwelcome ..."

"As I would have been in Gryffindor tower," he points out rightly. He was almost too shy for Slytherin house. He'd never have survived as a Gryffindor.

She plants a kiss on his chest and whispers, "I would have been your friend."

His heart skips at the thought.

_Such bliss._

To have been allowed to speak with her, to sit with her, to conspire and confide. She would have been his then, too, but as his equal in every way. It hurt too much to think of, and he closed his eyes against it. Against her and her silly dreams.

She would have none of it. "Don't do that," she huffs. "I'm the surly one, remember?"

"And I'm your whipping boy," he returns, ironically droll.

"Don't act like you don't like it." She smiles wickedly and fingers his nipple.

How could he not like it? Any attention is good attention, and she hasn't cried in weeks, nor skipped her meals. She appears stronger than ever. Any and all suffering he had paid for this golden goddess draped across him was worth it in spades. No, he had not been miss-sorted. Cursed as he was.

"Or that I don't deserve it," he answers in turn.

She frowns slightly. He said the wrong thing. He was always saying the wrong fucking thing.

"We don't always get what we deserve, Rabbit," she intones with a hint of bitterness.

"No," he agrees, "sometimes what we get is so much more."

Her eyes flit back up, alight, and the corner of her mouth begins to turn.

A smile.

Redemption.

He lets out a slow breath and sucks it back in as she crawls over him and lets her mouth take over for her fingers. Her mouth is soft and hot and inviting, but her teeth are sharp as they grab hold of his tender flesh. She looks up at him with devious eyes and holds his breathless gaze for a long moment before releasing her hold and moving her lips along his chest.

She kisses her way up his neck, inhaling deeply through her nose. The rush of air over that sensitive spot sends pleasure chills up him and he reflexively arches against her. She pushes back with a sly smile in her eyes. He gently strokes her thighs and hips, encouraging her to continue. To press harder.

And she does.

Her playful eyes turn serious, and she drags her nails up his chest, increasing her pressure as she moves up until he stiffens, bracing himself for whatever she decides to give him.

Just before she breaks the skin she relents, sighs, her tensed muscles softening.

She threads her fingers through his hair, cradling his head, and peppers his face with kisses. His relief quickly moves into elation, and as her lips continue moving down is jaw to his lips, he slides his hands gently up her sides, just barely grazing her skin. Her muscles contract involuntarily and she attempts to stifle a gasp.

Poorly.

"Ticklish," he muses mischievously.

"No," she answers, her incredulous tone bordering on offense.

His fingers skate lightly up her sides again, causing her muscles to contract again.

"Liar," he teases, moving his fingers and wrenching an unwilling peal of laughter from her.

Her eyes widen at the surprising lack of control she has over her own body.

He squeezes her sides and she rolls off of him in a fit of giggles. He takes the opportunity presented and rolls with her, pinning her beneath him, and continues to torment and delight her.

He has heard her laugh many times, but never like this. Never for _him_. Every memory he has of her girlish giggle is eradicated with rapturous gales echoing off the walls, in his mind, in his heart, here, in their bed. She gasps for him to stop. He tilts his hips forward to press against her and she gasps again.

"Stop what?" he asks mischievously, still holding her tightly, possessively.

Her cheeks are flushed so prettily with exertion and glee, her grin is wide and true. She shines bright enough to burn off every failure, inadequacy, and dark spot from his soul and nearly takes his breath away.

"Stop teasing me and make me cum again," she answers with a blissful sigh, angling her hips so that all he has to do is push forward to answer her request.

He leans in to kiss her smiling lips and feels the dreaded burn of his summoning. He pulls away and she knows.

She knows.

And in that moment her flush turns from pleasure to alarmed awareness.

How quickly they had forgotten. How easily, how marvelously.

He slides out of bed without looking at her, but from the corner of his eyes he sees her pull the sheets up to her neck. He hurriedly dons his black robes and with each button done, he can feel her eyes harden upon him. Upon herself. By the time he slips the mask out of his cloak pocket, her smiles and laugher seem like a distant memory, a fleeting apparition, here and gone so quick he cannot be sure that they were real at all.

He glances up at her to find her gaze hard, yet unexpectedly desperate. She's searching his eyes, his countenance. He feels the slump to his shoulders though he stands straight and tall. Does she see it? Does she know her own weight? His mark burns hot and impatient but he cannot look away. Her grip on the sheet relaxes and he thinks maybe she understands.

Where he's going, she cannot follow, but she'll be there all the same.

Constantly, heavily, recklessly; her words in his head, her weight on his shoulders, her eyes burning hotter than his mark ever could.

His eyes darken as he slips on the mask, leaving behind that other self. But not far. Never far. He is bound by she, and no matter the distance, the deed, the danger, she'll be there. Soft, out of focus, but ever present.

In thought.

In action.

In dreams.

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**A/N:** : : : : : wibbles : : : : : : did anyone like it? Should I keep going?

Also, I am posting this without it being beta read _at all. _Apologies for any and all mistakes.


	5. In Dreams part 2

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own them. Sadly.

**Summary:** This is the flipside to the last vignette. The same snapshot in time, but from Hermione's perspective.

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Even with her eyes closed, she could tell he was watching.

It was irritating to be observed so closely, so incessantly, yet it was also indescribably comforting.

She sighed, conflicted, ruffling the curls she hid behind. He gently pushed back the spiraled locks to kiss her goodbye, and her placid façade crumpled reflexively.

It wasn't that he was going, it was that he always left when she was in no position to argue about it.

"Don't," she complained.

"Don't what?" he returned softly, disobediently. He had the nerve to pull away even as he spoke.

"Don't go yet." She opened her sleepy eyes to pin him with a direct order.

"Will you miss me?" he teased. The prat.

"You know I will," she admitted honestly, resentfully. He was turning arrogant from all the sex, but it was too late to deny him now. "Bastard," she added.

"Tell me about your dream," he requested soothingly. "Was it a nice one?"

She sighed again. It was as pleasant a dream as she was likely to have, and she knew she only had it because she fell asleep sated and in his arms. She doesn't like telling him such things. He swells too much, the silly boy.

"I dreamt of Hogwarts," she answered.

"Was I there?" he asked. For more. Always for more.

"You were," she answered impatiently.

Her lover, her friend, her other self, it wouldn't have been a _dream_ without him. She kept this to herself and turned to look him over in his repose, long, and lithe, and utterly beautiful.

He was still such a boy, but much more a man than he ever was at school for certain. She remembered him sitting quietly in class, during meals, in the back section of the library. How much of that delicate, reserved boy was left in this hard bodied soldier she curled around? As if in response to her question, he began to pull away again.

"Not yet," she ordered, finishing with a demanding tug on his arm and pinning him back down.

He relented easily and she held him tighter in reward.

"I miss the castle," she finally continued. "I miss the busy halls, the dorms, the portraits, and even the ghosts."

She remembered the swarms of students rushing to class, the fire crackling merrily in her tower room, the Fat Lady's salacious gossiping while the Grey Lady commiserated with Nearly Headless Nick about propriety when students were caught snogging in some corner or another, and, finally, Peeves taunting her and dropping buckets of water over her head as she rushed in vain to avoid him.

"_Most of them,_" she corrected herself.

"I miss it, too," he empathized. "The grounds, the library, the unbreachable feeling of the Slytherin common room ..."

"Unbreachable isn't a word," she corrected automatically.

"No," he agreed a bit testily, "it's a _feeling_."

She smirked and gave him a pass. "You felt safe down there. The one place in the castle I would have been most uncomfortable and unwelcome ..."

"As I would have been in Gryffindor tower," he pointed out.

She couldn't argue with that. Even if he had begged the hat to sort him there, he would have made a miserable Gryffindor. Too skeptical, shy, and reticent from years of browbeating by his horrid father, Theodore would have been an even lonelier Gryffindor than he was a Slytherin.

No, that wasn't true. Hermione would have taken to him in an instant, as he would have to her. If they hadn't been sorted they way they had, she knew they would have been inseparable at school.

She kissed his chest and whispered, "I would have been your friend."

He frowned at her and her assumptions, and turned away.

"Don't do that," she huffed. "I'm the surly one, remember?"

"And I'm your whipping boy," he returned wryly.

"Don't act like you don't like it." She smiled coyly and played with his nipple.

"Or that I don't deserve it," he added sullenly.

And there he was, her Theodore. She needn't have worried that the soldier had usurped the boy. He was a whiney and needy as ever.

"We don't always get what we deserve, Rabbit," she answered annoyed.

"No," he agreed, "sometimes what we get is so much more."

_Well, at least he admitted it_, she thought as her playful smile reappeared on her lips.

She crawled over him and let her mouth take over for her fingers, enjoying the way his nipple puckered in her mouth. Did it feel as good for him as it does for her? If his groans are anything to go by, it was at least a very close call.

She kissed her way up his neck, inhaling deeply through her nose, catching his scent, so intoxicatingly sweet to her, she'll find it everywhere once he's gone. But, the feeling is so different then. The achy craving it gives her now will give way to more desperate desires when he's gone. She'll find his scent everywhere because she can never help looking.

But he cannot know it.

The situation was hopeless and perverse. She often questioned her circumstance and sanity, and came to frighteningly logical conclusions. Conclusions that called for punishment. "_This will hurt me more than it hurts you_," her mother used to say. She understood the truth of that statement now. She understood in ways her dear, sweet mother never could have.

She dragged her nails up his chest slowly as her thoughts darkened, digging in deeper as she inched forward along his smooth, pale flesh, and enjoying the sight of the red lines blooming in her wake. Soon she would cut him, but he did not protest. He stiffened in readiness, accepting her attentions in whatever form they came. For good or ill, he was willing, always willing, for her.

_Sometimes the only way to cherish something is to be forced to recognize its worth to you. _

They had both paid dearly for the comfort they found in each other, and yet they could not help but come back for more. She ended her assault at this thought and instead peppered his face with kisses, moving down is jaw to his lips, so soft and eager. His sigh of pleasure was almost musical and resonated in her chest as if it were born there.

_Gods, have mercy._

They kissed and touched and held on to each other while everything else fell away. Thoughts, feelings, memories, until all that was left was new and innocent and instinctual. His mouth on her mouth, his skin on her skin, his heart beating against her heart.

His hands moved up her sides, just barely grazing her breasts. As he skimmed under her ribs, her muscles contracted involuntarily, and she attempted to stifle a gasp.

"Ticklish," he mused, obviously pleased with the discovery.

"No," she answered firmly. How ridiculous. She's never been ticklish before.

His long, gentle fingers skated lightly up her sides, causing her muscles to contract again, and her chest to shake with repressed laughter.

"Liar," he accused teasingly, grabbing her sides a bit more firmly and wrenching an unwilling peal of laughter from her.

Her eyes widened at the surprising lack of control she had over her own body. Leave it to Theodore to find yet another way to both provoke and pleasure her against her will.

He squeezed again and she rolled off of him in a fit of giggles. He took the opportunity presented and rolled with her, pinning her firmly beneath him, and continued to torment and delight her.

It had been so long since she laughed uncontrollably, she had forgotten how it can wind a person. She gasped for him to stop. He tilted his hips forward to press his erection against her and she gasped again.

"Stop what?" he asked mischievously.

Her cheeks burned from the strain of her reflexive grin and the flush of exertion, embarrassment, and pleasure. And yet she could not stop smiling. Somewhere inside she would have cursed herself for feeling so intensely happy, but the joyous light in his eyes as he looked down at her smiling, pink face drowned out everything but the desire to hold, and kiss, and make love with him.

"Stop teasing me and make me cum again," she answered with a blissful sigh, angling her hips so that all he had to do was push forward to answer her request.

He leaned in for a kiss and froze just before they could connect. His muscles tensed and his eyes dilated.

He was being summoned.

He pulled away quickly, leaving behind a cold, gaping, void that was rapidly filled with fear and shame. She reflexively pulled the sheet up to cover herself and watched him as he did the same with his Death Eater's robes, each button and clasp distancing him further from her until he vanished in a sea of black.

He removed his mask from his inner pocket and glanced up at her. She had never actually seen him wear the thing, and wondered if she would even recognize him at all beneath it if they were to come upon each other in the dead of night, or even the brilliant light of day.

Where was he, her Theodore? Where did he go when he disappeared behind that mask? And how did he manage to come back to her, again, and again?

And, gods, whatever would she do if one day he _didn't_?

She nearly dropped the sheet and ran to him, but retained just enough stubborn dignity to stay put, and inhale deeply and evenly while her eyes betrayed everything he ever wanted to hear from her.

More, probably.

He stared back at her for a long moment, then slipped on the mask, his body straight and hard. She imagined his eyes to be the same, but she could not know it. He turned to the door as soon as the shadow slipped over his face.

Even without seeing his masked face before her, she knew.

She would know him in any light, or without one at all.

She knew by his elegant outline, youthful yet undeniably masculine. By his carriage, so unassumingly aristocratic. By the gentle slope of his shoulders, brooding, but resolute.

She knew by the scent she tracked by day, and the visions she chased by night.

Nothing would ever hide or obscure him from her. She'd know him anywhere, feel him, possess him, be possessed in return.

In lightness.

In darkness.

In dreams.

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**A/N: **Again, I'm posting without aid of my beta, who is just too damn busy to read my boring fanfics. Apologies for all mistakes.

Besides encouraging me to write more, reviews for this series really make my day.

Thanks to all of you who take the time : )


	6. Tasted

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own them

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His mouth was so hot, it felt like fire moving across her skin.

His hands gripped her hips tighter, his fingers fairly digging into her skin as he pressed himself into her.

He was so needy. And she loved it when he was needy.

Because he was fit and potent.

Because he was powerful.

Because he was only ever needy for her.

His magic radiated from him and into her with every breath and tilt of his hips, and she accepted and absorbed him greedily, feeling and smelling and tasting him as he filled her.

If someone had told her before Theo that magic had a smell or a taste, she'd have laughed. Too naïve and intractable, that swotty little know-it-all, she'd never have considered that magic could have such dimensions, that it could be so tangible, so individual, so intimate.

Sex with Theodore had always been a magical experience, and in ways it had never been with anyone else. She tingled inside with his presence, and not just in that delicious way between her thighs as he moved between, stroking and grinding her to peaks of ecstasy. Her whole body tingled, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. And when she exploded into orgasm, she could feel those tingles manifest into something greater. In her mind she saw them spark off into him, and she wondered if he felt it. If he tasted it. And if he did, what did she taste like to him?

Was she tart or fiery as she imagined herself to be, or did her magic take on a different aspect for him?

He was heady and woodsy to her, sharp and dark and slightly bitter. He engulfed her senses, challenged her will and endurance, and crackled with life and danger and the lure of the illicit and taboo.

Her very own forbidden forest.

And he didn't know. He couldn't know. She would _never_ tell him.

Not what he meant to her, or what he represented. Of the places he touched and filled and brought to life. Places she never knew existed. Her own darkness and lightness and that foggy area in between that, in his arms, dissipated in revelations of stunning clarity. Who she was, who she wasn't, who she used to be. Who she wanted to be, and who she could only ever become with him.

Succumbing to such rational had come slowly. Painfully. And still she fought with frustrating futility. The thoughts tangled in her head like so many webs, all spun together and twisting toward the same central truth.

A ridiculous truth that she couldn't believe even as it stared her in the face.

He groaned softly as he delivered another powerful thrust, and she reciprocated, holding him tight. Their bodies mashed and writhed, their hands stroked and gripped.

His stormy eyes cut through the darkness, meeting hers with determined passion. He was going to make her cum again, his every thought and movement keenly focused on the task.

And she didn't want to, but she couldn't help herself. She begged for him to kiss her. She was repaid by the half whimper he breathed into her mouth as he kissed her deep and fucked her deeper.

And, gods, had anything ever been as beautiful? Had anything ever been as real and true and certain?

She could feel it in his grip, see it in his eyes, and taste it in the air they shared. His magic. His desire. His love.

She wouldn't say it.

She _couldn't_ say it.

But it didn't matter. One look into his eyes and she knew.

He tasted her, too.

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A/N: Winding down toward the end. Anyone still with me? Shall I continue?


	7. Lost

**Disclaimer: **I do not own. Anything. Boo hoo : (

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Hermione was smiling.

She didn't smile often anymore, and when she did it generally meant she was either deliriously well sated or on the teetering edge of something vicious.

She lay on his bed on her stomach, her defiant jaw propped upon the heels of her hands. She tilted her head to rest on one hand and used the other to crook a finger at him. As he approached, she held up her hand to halt his progress.

And she did.

"You're so obedient, Theodore," she purred, "Is there anything you wouldn't do to please me?"

Her tone was sexy and coy but her eyes betrayed her venom. He pondered his answer for just a moment, knowing that every seconds delay would cost him. "I like to please you, kitten. There's very little I wouldn't do for you."

"Like … letting me go?" she hissed.

He frowned. "There's no place else for you to go."

"Says you," she snipped.

"Says The Dark Lord," he rejoined darkly.

"Pish," she dismissed with a wave of her hand.

His eyebrows rose at her daring. "You temp fate, Love."

"Fate has forgotten me. I temp only you these days." Her voice was bitterness with a hint of melancholy.

"You temp every man who lays eyes on you, and you know it." His voice lilted in accusation.

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to show my gratitude for your protection?" she simpered mockingly.

"_Are_ you grateful?" he asked, "I've seen the way you look at Lestrange."

He sounded petulant.

Perhaps he was.

She snorted.

It was true about Lestrange. Sick, yes, but true.

And Lestrange was _so_ obvious with his return interest, and she _loved_ that he was so obvious.

It had long thrilled her to have Theodore so completely spun, but to coil her web about a man like Rodolphus Lestrange sent her soaring to new heights. She fucked Theodore hard and dirty on the nights those eyes had raked over her, and now she knew.

_He_ knew.

He _knew_ she wasn't just thinking of him.

And it hurt him.

And it thrilled her that it hurt him while at the very same time it felt like a knife twisting in her gut. Her own knife. A knife she wrought and honed and wielded with such devastating precision.

She could never just let it be, this twisted reality, this perversely pleasurable nightmare, this terrible, desperate, soul crushing love.

"Am I grateful?" She repeated his question. Dare she look, really look, for the answer? Was it true, once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor? Or could that be chipped and broken away, too? Like shards of glass from a tower window, flakes of dried blood on a flagstone floor, or splinters of a snapped length of Vinewood, _10 ¾ inches_.

"What do you want to hear, Rabbit?" she asked in a warning tone.

"The truth," he answered, his mouth and throat suddenly dry.

"The truth?" she smiled mirthlessly. "The truth is that I both covet and loath your protection like I do everything else about you. The truth is that the longer you keep me here the more I lose of myself, my mind warped and my soul corrupted. The truth is that I want Lestrange to put his hands on me, not because he'll fuck me, but because he'll probably kill me. Because the truth is, Theodore, that the more I love you the more I want to _die._"

And there it was.

He nearly stumbled backward and crumpled under the ecstasy and agony of it. She covets and loathes him. She _loves him _and it makes her want to be brutalized and killed. Because loving him means she's lost. Warped. Corrupted.

_Gone._

His hands shook with the strain of his desire to strike her, to beat and strangle and choke the fucking life out of her. So astute, his little know-it-all. She always knows just how, just when, and just where to hurt him to the greatest effect.

And didn't he know it was coming? For he was never less insightful than she. He'd seen the look before, felt her tongue slide through his formality and confidence like a machete though the coarsest, densest, and most prolific jungle defenses. Just four strokes and she had laid him bare before her and cut him to the quick.

He lunged forward, startling her out of her vitriol. His right hand snapping out and clamping around her pretty little throat and flipping her over while his left hand tore at her robes. She reflexively braced herself, grabbing his right forearm and left shoulder, her wide eyes displaying both her fear and her challenge for him to finish it.

A moment later he was on top and driving into her with a savage roughness and desperation he'd not shown before. His right hand still gripped her throat, constricting her airway with a squeeze each time he thrust into her. And she was wet, so wet, and the room began to reek of anger and sex, of desperation and fear. He paused for just a fraction at the completion of each down stroke to grind against her and hold off her air just a little longer. Her grip on his shoulder and forearm increased and he wasn't sure if she meant to yield or propel him. Her earlier words still rang in his ears, pierced his soul, and seared in his veins.

_I love you. _

_I want to die._

"Say it again," he hissed, his hand sliding from her throat to the back of her head and tangling in her hair as he continued to drive into her. "Tell me. Tell me again," he nearly sobbed.

She gulped for air, tears stung her eyes, she gritted her teeth against the indignity of her own aching heart. She was so good at hurting him, so very good at hurting them both.

"_I'm lost_," she whimpered.

His punishing rhythm staggered and he pressed himself as deeply into her as possible and cradled her head. "You're not," he argued gently. "You're here. _You_, Hermione. _You're_ here."

"I'm not --"

"You _are_. You're angry, and you have every right to be. The day you accept this without reservation --"

"Hasn't that day come and gone? I lay in your bed and play and laugh and cum and dream and …" she tilted her hips to allow him to sink in a bit further. "I kiss you and I hold you and …"

"And?" he asked, grinding against her.

She sighed a half moan, half sob in response.

He ground down again. "And?"

Again, she merely whimpered.

He untangled his fingers from her hair and reached down to grasp her hips, and grind harder. "And?" he asked as his rhythm increased.

"And …" She trembled.

"And?" He nuzzled her neck, finding and sucking that sweet spot while continuing to thrust and grind.

She spiraled up and up and up with each push of his hips and the nearness of his heart, pressed so close to hers that she could feel it beating inside her own chest.

"And?" he persisted.

"_And love you._" She shattered, gripping him so tightly it was hard to tell where she ended and he began.

Her words and her body tugged him along with her, and he came hard, filling him with ecstasy and her with his seed.

"Soon," he said between kisses. "Soon it will happen. Prophesies always come true. We just have to hold on a little longer. Stay angry a little longer."

"But not at each other," she lamented softly.

"You cannot afford to go around showing your anger to anyone else. And I can't afford to lose you. Without you …" he trailed off in thought.

"Without me?" she prodded.

"Without you, _I'm_ lost."

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**A/N: **and now we're all on the same page, yes?

Honestly, did you see this one coming?

I had originally planned that the readers would know that she was living in his house, a prisoner of war, pretty much right from the start. But, then I had too much fun with all the ambiguity available in looking just at key moments of a relationship from one perspective or the other. This one, obviously, is from both of them.

Seeing a story get a lot of hits and few reviews is really discouraging. So, massive thanks to all who have supported me this endeavor. Your reviews have meant more to me than you know. I realize this is a different, strange, and at times confusing way to tell a story, and I love you all to death for following along this far and encouraging me to continue.

Do you still want more or have I lost you with the whole Hermione as a prisoner thing?

I know it's cliche, but I have always hated how she's portrayed in them, you know? Usually she's beaten, or raped, or tortured, and somehow still falls in love with her keeper. I wanted to turn that cliche on its ear and have a perpetually self empowered Hermione -- a more canon Hermione -- and a reluctant Death Eater who looks to her for strength and cherishes her beyond measure.

Are you feeling it? Should I bother adding the next vignettes? I'm feeling very discouraged right now :(


	8. Heresy

**Disclaimer: **JKR owns all.

**Warning!! **This is _fiction_. I'm not making any kind of religious statement. If you're a sensitive Catholic, are horridly opposed to atheism, or believe in Santa, please turn back now. Thank you : )

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She laid in quiet darkness while he stood by the dying fire, his hands on the mantle, leaning toward the heat and staring intensely, though distantly, into the embers.

He wore nothing but a pair of trousers that hung low on his hips. Tall and lean and strong, his muscles taut under smooth skin, he reminded her of a stallion. He even brooded like one.

Except that he _wasn't _brooding.

And she watched him intensely. Bitterly. Incredulously. She felt like jumping out of bed and slapping him. Like shaking and beating and knocking some fucking sense into him.

Because it was pitiful.

Because it was galling.

Because it was futile.

Her mouth tight and her chest tighter, she eyed him. He felt her burning gaze raking over him, she knew, and he did not meet her eye. Well, he may act ignorant, but he wasn't stupid. And neither was she.

He wasn't dreaming or thinking or brooding. He was praying.

And in all the places he looked so tight and so broad and so strong, she saw his weaknesses, his fragility -- his gut wrenching sincerity.

But not her.

In all the places she looked strong, she _was_ strong. And it had nothing to do with the inexplicable or esoteric. She wasn't strung together by hope in the illogical and intangible. She wasn't.

She _wasn't._

She didn't believe in God.

She couldn't.

Her parents had blamed her early lack of faith on her pragmatic mind, never themselves for fooling their young daughter into believing in Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny.

But, she remembered her intense feelings of humiliation when she questioned the logistics of such stories and found out that she'd been lied to. Deceived. Tricked. Betrayed.

And, after that, how could she believe in some big, invisible man in the sky who listens to everyone in the world whinging and begging for wishes all at the same time, constantly? She had been one of them once. She knew the ridiculousness of the things people prayed for. Selfish things. Insignificant things.

Again her eyes raked him over.

_Impossible things._

"Prophesies always come true_,_" Theo said softly, reverently.

And she didn't believe that either.

Just another fucking bedtime story to relax her agitated mind and make her more complacent. Be a good girl. Go to church. Pray. Someday you'll go to heaven and see Nana and Papa again.

Did God keep count of how many times she yawned during Sunday services?

Did He hear her wicked thoughts?

Did He care how often she laid in sin with her lover? How many times she touched herself while dreaming of his hands and his mouth and his cock doing the things she did for herself while he was away?

Would she burn in Hell for just being born a witch?

Or was she already there?

Parvati wasn't a very religious girl, but she was spiritual. She believed in reincarnation and that life on Earth was our Heaven or our Hell. We are all stranded here. Marooned. Abandoned. Left to fend for ourselves and the others we meet along the way. We could be selfish and greedy and bad, and Karma would serve it right back to us. Life would be Hell. Or, we could be noble and generous and good, and Karma would deliver _that_ back to us, as well. Heaven on Earth.

Parvati was a self-absorbed cunt who gossiped all the time, never studied, and kissed other peoples boyfriends. Perhaps that was why the last time Hermione had seen her, Parvati had been coughing up her insides under Antonin Dolohov's quivering wand.

But then what did that say about Hermione? What was she being punished for? And what of Theodore?

Theodore who believed. Theodore who prayed.

Theodore the Death Eater.

He said he didn't want to take the mask and mark, but had no choice. It was join or die. But, he did do the Dark Lord's bidding, even if he didn't enjoy it the way Dolohov did. And when Theo left the Dark Lord's side, he returned to his lover, his confessor, his personal celebrant savior, and confessed his many sins. Begged for forgiveness. For understanding.

But he also begged for blow jobs, and while she imagined some people prayed for sexual favors to be delivered to them, she didn't think they went to their spiritual guides for it.

Or, perhaps some of them did.

The Catholics, maybe.

The thought of Theodore at Mass with her in her old church appeared vividly in her mind. His Death Eater's robes remade into those of an alter boy, a rosary in place of his wand. It was a ridiculous juxtaposition in any other time or place, but here in this moment, in her mind, it made perfect sense.

Because Theodore could believe anything.

And it wasn't that he was naïve or gullible, but that he had a profound amount of faith. Faith in a higher power. Faith in the world. Faith in Harry Potter.

Harry was dead.

She knew it in her bones the way she knew that there was no God and no Santa and the sky only appeared to be blue because of the way sunlight is refracted by oxygen and nitrogen.

But Theodore said he believed, and she knew that he did. That he needed to.

"Prophesies always come true," he repeated. His prayer. His mantra.

He turned his eyes to hers, pained, _lost_, but impossibly hopeful.

She swallowed hard against her own bitterness and pride. "I know," she answered softly.

Her hand sought his.

Her heart ached to be filled.

Her mind whispered.

_Heresy._

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**A/N:** (Braces self for flames and howlers, or worse, _utter silence_)


	9. Absolution

**Disclaimer:** Not my characters.

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He has nothing to offer today.

No news. No flowers. No trinkets to show how he has been thinking of her.

Just a bone-tired body, dripping with rain and desperation.

Wet and weary and disgusted, he shies away from her when she reaches to help him strip off his sodden clothes. He doesn't need to look to know her disappointment in this miserable wretch who keeps coming to her in need of repair. If he were man enough, he would change things. He would have something of consequence to offer. He would come back whole or not at all.

At the thought of never returning, he glances up to find her looking a bit cross, a snit brewing behind her eyes. _Good_, he thinks. He has had it coming a long while now.

"Tell me what's happened," she commands, though gently. Much too gently.

He toes off his shoes and sets them by the fire to dry. "Since when? A lot has happened since I saw you last."

"Since you left then," she replies, impatiently pushing his stiff fingers aside to unbutton his shirt. "Gods, Theo, you're freezing. Where have you been?"

"London, Edinburgh, Cardiff … lots of places," he answers wearily.

"And what did you do there?"

She asks as though he'd just come back from holiday.

"Murder, mayhem, _atrocity_," he answers, his voice brimming with disgust. "The usual."

Her hands, her soft, tiny hands -- her fine, pale, clean hands drop away from him. He is filth, and undeserving of their attentions or care.

And she knows it.

She looks down at her hands and primly wipes them on her robes as she turns away from him to pace the room. She paces and she prowls in agitation, occasionally looking up at him with sharp, calculating eyes, her brilliant mind assessing and reassessing their situation. And she is magnificent. Always at her best when a crisis is at hand, he has certainly kept her well in recent times, with the war at its bloodiest and he in the middle of it. Dead in the fucking middle.

She finally stops her voyage through the quagmire of their existence, separate and mutual, as her methodical mind leaves nothing unnoticed or unevaluated. She looks at him shrewdly and calmly, resolved.

What would he give to possess such confidence?

"Come here, Bunny Rabbit," she calls firmly, but affectionately.

He swallows the lump in his throat and crosses to her like a child about to bury his face in his mothers apron.

She leads him to the bathroom and draws him a bath. She undresses them both as the water runs, and soon stands before him wearing nothing but the silver chain he has no longer has any clear memory of seeing her without. She steps into the water first and sits down at the end of the tub, spreading her legs and holding out her arms in invitation. The water feels scalding to his chilled flesh, but he gets in without complaint. He sinks into her arms and legs and impossible compassion.

Where did this angel come from? What has happened to his goddess of vengeance? Will she not now pin him with the strength of her righteous wrath and drown him in this sweet smelling water?

"You're so cold," she says softly, scooping hot water in her hands and running them over his chest and shoulders.

But the cold on the outside is nothing compared to what's on the inside, and he wonders if he'll ever be warm again; if he'll ever deserve to be warm again.

"You kept your promise," she informs him. "You came back."

"Not all of me," he admits. He's left something behind everywhere he's been. The good parts. The decent parts. She deserves better than the shit that's left behind.

"Is there any news of him?" she asks softly.

He stares ahead blankly. "None that I have been privy to."

She doesn't believe, still, and he hasn't the heart or the faith or the acuity to persuade and console her with beautiful fabrications tonight.

With her arms around his chest, cradling him between her thighs, she tucks her head down to kiss his neck and along his jaw. And it hurts. It fucking hurts so much that he can hardly bear it.

"I'm a murderer," he states. Though the knowledge is agonizing, his voice is flat, dull, as though the words hold no meaning.

She doesn't react. Not physically. Not in anyway that shows she understands who this man is that she has her slender legs wrapped about. Not in anyway that shows that she is still herself.

"Did you hear me?" he asks insistently.

Her arms and legs tighten and she buries her face in his neck. "I heard you," she replies softly.

"He thinks I do it for him." He almost whispers his bitterness. "I do it for you."

She is still for a long moment, her arms and legs still holding him tight. "You're trying to make me angry," she says finally, coolly. "You want to be punished. You think it will make you feel better."

"Won't it?" he asks, his voice brimming with hope and disgust.

"No," she says softly, factually, and she pours more water over him. "Punishment needs to fit the crime."

Poignant, as always, his Hermione. And, gods, it hurts. It hurts so deep and so right and so true. If he doesn't die in this war, she'll kill him. She'll tear him to pieces with bare hands and bare words. Even now she kills him with bareness, her naked body pressed tightly against his.

Again, she runs her warm hands over his chest, and again she kisses his neck and jaw. He turns his stormy blue eyes to hers, misty and mystified, to find her meaning. Is this his punishment? This excruciating, desperate, impossible love?

It is at once hot and cold, monstrous and beautiful, fleeting and eternal. Glimpses chipped from moments carved out of ages.

He sits still, held by her arms and her legs and her lips; by her breath and her words and her transitory faith.

It's not what he deserves. It's never what he deserves.

It's what he doubts and desires. It's what he cherishes and fears. It's what he comes back for even when he has nothing left to offer in return.

Her verdict. Her sentence.

His absolution.

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**A/N: **Thank you so much for the reviews for the last chapter. A little bit of feedback really goes a long way. I've had this vignette on the burner for months and could never seem to find the words or the mood or the bloody will to dig into my veins and draw out the conclusion. Ugly metaphor, I know, but sometimes that's how it feels when a piece refuses to write itself ;)

So, thank you for inspiring me. I hope you'll let me know how you feel about this vignette and/or the overall arch of the story.

Are you still in for the rest?


	10. Closure

**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to JKR. The misery is mine alone.

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She runs her fingers over the cold steal bars, circling.

"It's been a long time," she says somewhat sadly. "I would have come sooner but they wouldn't let me."

She pauses, watching.

He keeps his eyes down. He can't look at her now, not like this, not with the mask on. And they won't let him take it off, lest he forget. Lest she forget.

"They say anyone sick enough to hold someone captive for months on end deserves to be kissed." Her voice is soft. Musing.

It cuts like a knife.

"What do you think, Bunny Rabbit. Do you agree?" Her soft tone breaks against her will and she loses her confidence somewhere in the cracks. "Do you think I deserve to be kissed for what I did to you?"

She cannot mean it.

But she does.

"For what I do to you still," she adds through hopeful tears.

He groans in misery, but his long parched and roughly worn vocal cords issue more of a whimper. And his sob becomes a laugh. He's still her pup, after all this time.

"I never held it against you," he croaks. "You held it against yourself enough for both of us."

"As did you," she replies, breathlessly.

He imagines her heart is pounding as hard as his is. He longs to look up to see her chest rise and fall so rapidly. In unison with his. At last.

She turns away and paces. Agitated. Angry.

"They said all the things I told myself. And I knew," she rants, her words tumbling from her lips nearly as fast as she thinks them. "I knew exactly what they would say when I told them. They would say that I was not yet myself. That I was slipped potions, was brainwashed, had Stockholm Syndrome. But they don't know. They can never know or understand that we were prisoners together. How hard it was every time we said goodbye. Or how it tore me apart when they forced me to leave you. I didn't want to abandon you, Theo. I tried to write. Did you see that I tried to write?"

He remembers the opened book. The smudge of ink. One word, broken, but legible.

_Harry._

He'd torn away the page and burned it.

He nods his reply.

"I didn't believe. I couldn't believe. Maybe I didn't want to," she continues. "But then there he was, just as you said he'd be. _'Prophesies always come true,'_" she quotes him.

Yes, he'd said that. He thinks he may really have believed it, even before she disappeared.

"What happened?" she asks, her voice pleading and apologetic. "What happened when _he_ found out?"

He smiles wryly at the memory. "I was punished, of course."

She sucks in harsh breath.

He doesn't want to relive that day, and she doesn't need to know the details. "But I was … happy," he adds. "You were safe, or so I hoped."

"And you were free," she supplies. "Free of the burden of me."

"You're my soul, Hermione," he argues. "I didn't want to be free of you. I don't suppose I ever will be. I doubt even a dementor could pull you out of me."

She sniffles. She huffs. She sobs wretchedly, and grips the bars for strength.

He _will_ be kissed, then.

"Is this our last goodbye?" he asks. He doesn't want to know, but he _has_ to know. The others he was captured with were taken from the main cell, as he was, one by one, and never returned.

He glances toward the large oak door he came in through, to the one on the other side of the room, and feels the cold reaching out from within, wisping, curling, and wrapping him like so many tentacles.

She cries harder and he feels his own eyes well over, and there is silence between them for a long, heavy moment.

"It's good to have closure, don't you think?" he finally reflects sadly.

"This is not closure," she sniffs. "This is … I don't know what this is."

"A puzzle even you cannot solve," he teases gently. "It's hello and goodbye and I'm sorry," he suggests. "I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me."

"For what shall I forgive you?" she asks brokenly.

She can hardly breathe through her sorrow now, and his arms ache to hold her. He tugs at the shackles tying him to the center of the cell, trying to inch closer to her.

"For not freeing you sooner. On my own. For not wanting to," he confesses.

"I cannot cherish it and forgive you for it at the same time," she replies. "Even I am not complicated enough for such a paradox."

He laughs through his tears and feels his chest tighten as she joins him briefly before whimpering in agony once more.

"For what shall I forgive you, Hermione?" he asks softly, pulling her from her sorrow.

"For punishing you for things you had no control over," she proposes. "For not seeing enough, or for seeing too much, perhaps. For never telling you how much I love you." Her voice breaks and she pauses for a moment, trying in vain to catch her breath through the shuddering sobs that begin to over take her once more.

"Silly chit," he chides. "You're a walking, talking paradox without even trying."

She huffs petulantly, even through her sniffles.

"What _should_ I ask forgiveness for?" she asks, her breath slowly coming back to her.

"What are you actually sorry about?" he returns.

"Bastard," she whispers.

"You misunderstand," he soothes. "I bear no grudges when it comes to you. How could I?"

"Easily," she rejoins. "I was horrid to you."

"I was the enemy. I deserved it. I expected it," he replies. "And you weren't always horrid," he reminds her. He is lost in reverie for a moment, thoughts and feelings and memories of her whirl through his mind, but he always comes back to settle on one. "You were the first woman I ever made love with, did you know?"

"Of course," she answers honestly. "How could I not, the way you trembled in my arms?"

He is glad he has the mask now. His face burns hotly.

"I trembled, too, I think," she adds softly. "I never knew it could feel like that; every kiss, every move, every breath a gift from God. I knew then that I belonged to you in a way that transcended the way that _he_ said I belonged to you. And it galled me. To be owned. To want to be owned. So I punished you for it, and in doing so I punished myself. I suppose if I'm truly sorry for anything, I'm sorry for that."

He doesn't know what to say in response. The emotions are intense, crushing, but the words will not come. He feels the pull of the cold waiting for him beyond that door. The time is approaching and his gut twists in fear. He doesn't want to die. Not now. Not without the right words.

"If …" he begins desperately, but his thoughts and words tangle as he hears voices and footsteps approaching from beyond the door.

"If what?" she asks, gripping the bars tighter, as if she might wrench them apart.

"If you're asking me to forgive you for loving me …" he begins and is interrupted by a rough banging on the door.

"Not yet!" she calls out desperately.

"I can't forgive you for that," he says quickly with a shake of his head. "I'm too fucking grateful for it."

"Theodore," she cries softly.

"No one ever loved me before," he continues shamelessly. "I was damned even before I took the mark. I didn't want it. I didn't believe the things they believed. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted him to love me. I know it's stupid. But, in a fucked up way, I got what I wanted, didn't I? I got you."

She sobs pitifully again, her whole body shaking with grief.

"And you were so right about me that first night," he continued shamelessly. "He sent me to you, to make a man out of me. And it was such folly. Even you knew I could never hurt you. But, you _did_ make a man out of me, Hermione, and not just a man, a soldier, because, with you, I found something worth fighting for. And I don't regret it. I can't."

The door swings open revealing Harry with Ron and Charlie Weasley just behind him. Harry looks at her regretfully, and Ron scowls angrily at Theo.

"It's time," Charlie says gently.

"Please don't do this," she begs.

"Hermione," Harry answers sadly, "we've been over this. It's not my call."

Charlie pulls her back from the bars and holds her in a strong embrace as she pleads and writhes to stop them.

Ron and Harry disengage the shackles pinning him to the center of the cell, and, each holding an arm, they drag him out.

"Wait! Stop!" she cries desperately. "I don't have it. I don't have it yet --"

"You don't have what?" Harry asks, pausing for just a moment. Theo's head remains down, his shoulders slumped heavily.

She whimpers, fresh tears spilling down her face. "I need to see him. Please let me look at him."

"You're looking," Ron bites out, clipped and angry.

"His face," she corrects. "Let me see his face."

Ron yanks hard on Theo's arm in response, dragging him forcefully toward the door. But, Harry remains fixed, staring into Hermione's pleading eyes.

Ron stares daggers at Harry, and grunts another tug toward the door in vain. Harry will not budge.

"Look then, if you think it will help," Harry replies disapprovingly, but his ever loyal heart reaching out to her nonetheless.

He removes the mask gently, revealing Theodore's sweaty, tear streaked face. His cheeks are flushed and he burns with regret that he's being seen by his rivals like this, but he is grateful to have the chance to look in her eyes one last time.

His eyes move up slowly from the gritty floor to her face, to her eyes.

Her chest rises and falls in rhythm with his.

And she calms.

Her aguish slowly melts into a hopeful sort of expression before finally widening into a small, teary smile.

"I love you, too," she says softly.

He is shuffled through the door, Harry and Ron's grip on him still firm, but needlessly so. Charlie's strong arms continue to encircle her, but she also makes no move to counter him.

In his minds eye, he still sees her, and stares into the depths of her soul.

To find safety.

To find peace.

To find his own eyes looking back at him.

To find closure.

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**A/N: **Don't throw things at me. I never promised you a happy ending.

… and this is quite possibly not exactly the end.

Unless you all want it to be. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.


	11. Other Worlds Fin

Standard Disclaimer: Not my characters.

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He wasn't learned, her lover. He knew nothing of spells or potions or theories of transfiguration.

He wasn't reticent or mysterious; his every thought and emotion drifted across his face as she looked on.

He didn't second guess or belabor every meaning of every word of every sentence as it passed through her lips.

He couldn't have guessed one-tenth of one-hundredth of the things that went through her mind when she looked at him. Or, perhaps more importantly, the things that didn't.

He hadn't any shared history with her or any true concept of suffering.

He wasn't shy, or insecure, or self-effacing.

He didn't and couldn't and wasn't so many things. All leading and building and culminating to what he was.

Perfect. Beautiful. Whole.

For too many months she'd suffered in ignorance an anger, unable to let go of a past that now seemed fleeting and desperate to be forgotten. A rough beginning to a story, an epic, scrapped and buried but still skittering beneath the surface of every new passage.

For an ungodly long time, she had raged bitterly over what she had lost in the process. Dozens of moments, tiny and profound, gifted and stolen, magnificent and unbearable. Hundreds of words and glances and touches that made up a history. Thousands of moments that made up a life. A million memories that clicked and clung and coalesced into another place in time, into another world. A place and time where they belonged to each other as certainly as the earth to the sun. Eternally. Violently. Intractably.

Collision was inevitable.

The first time they made love he was surprised, but passive -- utterly docile as she straddled his hips and began removing his robes. His breath had caught once or twice as she tugged his shirt free from his trousers and unfastened them only as far as need be. He had watched her stiffly, almost apprehensively, as she hiked up her robes so they could both see what she was doing.

She could feel him tremble with excitement, restraint and painful uncertainty. Was she just teasing again? He didn't know. He didn't dare to hope. He didn't dare to move.

She could pull away if she wanted to. Even as she pressed her wet center against the smooth, warm length of him, heard his whimper and felt his resolve not to need, not to want, _not to hope _begin to crumble, she knew he wouldn't stop her if she chose to reject him again. And she relished that power. That control.

She watched his expressions shift from intense arousal to worshipful amazement to agonizing insecurity. Her heart stuttered and she moved her hips forward then back as she felt him align with her. As his tip slid into her, he let out a small strangled groan then for a long moment remained very still and very stiff as his face turned from pink to red, and his fingers dug into the cushions of the divan.

"Breathe, you silly boy," she had ordered, lightly, more concerned than annoyed, but just barely.

He let out his breath and reflexively sucked in another as she slid down and took him fully. Slightly stunned by the ease and quickness of it all and obviously still full of nerves, he had stared at her, his eyes swimming with surprise, wonder and delirious love.

And, oh, he was beautiful. So beautiful.

She remembered his face, flushed and sweaty, the look of concentration that marked his perfect brow while he struggled and shook with the ecstasy of making love for the first time and the awful fear of disappointing her. He had bravely moved his hands from the cushions to her hips and gently tugged and rocked in rhythm with her. His breathing was slightly labored and was delivered with just barely audible grunts and moans and whimpers. Those little noises egged her on so, and she could scarcely believe it when she hit her climax just minutes into the act.

She had never… it had never… no one had ever…

She had stared down at him, her fingers still clenched in his shirt and her lips hovering just inches from his, and felt awash with joy and power and an indescribable completeness. It tingled in every nerve ending, rushed through her veins and lingered sweetly on the tip of her tongue. Love.

She _loved_ him.

He hadn't closed his eyes once, and, mercy, how they had lit up with understanding and pride and pleasure as he followed her into that bliss.

That was his moment. The one memory he kept closest. The one he cherished above all others. His perfect, perfect moment. He swore he would never let it go. He would never, ever forget.

But he did forget.

He forgot everything they wanted him to forget.

He'd claimed that not even a dementor could pull her from him, but all it took was a few flicks of Hestia Jones' wand.

Oh, the murderous rage she had felt when they told her.

It was a mercy, Harry had tried to convince her. Theodore was better off not remembering magic once he could never do it again. He wouldn't even know what he had lost.

But what about her? What about what _she_ lost?

Her lover. Her friend. Her perfect, perfect, perfect…

Ronald was smug and unforgiving -- not that she cared anymore to have lost _him_. Ron had always, _always_ been a selfish, jealous and spiteful prat when things didn't turn out his way. This was his idea, his demand, and it was as much her punishment as it was Theo's. A cruel retaliation, no matter what they said.

Theodore forgot, and she couldn't.

She couldn't forget the life and love they had shared. She couldn't forget the heat in his eyes, the scent of his body, or the taste of his magic. She couldn't even grieve him properly.

For how could she grieve the loss of someone she saw every day? In an obscene and bitter irony, she was more a prisoner now than she had ever been during the war.

It wasn't him, she had tried to tell herself.

So like him, but not him.

It was an imposter. An outrageous imitation. His easy, assured smile a ghost, a shadow, a perverse facsimile of _his_ smile, shy and quiet and beautifully understated.

He was confident and happy and beautiful. So goddamn beautiful.

It hurt. It hurt so fucking much that she wondered how she'd stayed sane, how she'd not broken apart in her anger and bitterness.

But it didn't last long. It couldn't. Hermione wasn't the sort of person to suffer delusions or ignore facts. And he wouldn't have let her if she tried. When curiosity and obsession didn't drive her to seek him out, he found her all the same.

And he found her everywhere, as if by magic. On the streets, in the park, in book shops and cafés. He found her lost. He found her lonely. He found her longing.

Her face would screw up in the frustrating panic and pleasure that finding him suddenly before her invariable wrought.

His face would flush with pride and embarrassment and irrepressible joy each time they met and he could see how he affected her.

Even in her rage, it was undeniable.

This stupidly disarming boy _was_ Theo.

This was Theo without the bitterness and the pain, without the fear and dejection and loneliness. This was Theodore Nott without all the losses and horrors that had broken him down.

And he _was_ better off this way.

He didn't remember school or the war or anything magic. But he obviously remembered other things. Ordinary things. Useful things.

He remembered how to walk and talk and read, but not the woman who taught him how. He remembered stories and constellations and the name of every flower in the park garden, but not the books he learned them from.

He remembered how to make love to her, but not the tumultuous days and nights he'd spent mapping her body.

Theodore Nott may have been the only person in the world to have, in effect, lost his virginity twice.

In many ways, the second first time was just like the first. Again, she had taken charge, and pushed him down to mount him. Though, this time she had waited until they were in her bedroom.

The _first_ first time, she had wondered if his father or any of the house elves might have seen. It was hardly discreet, pushing him down on the divan in the library like that. The second first time she wondered how well the Aurors kept track of him.

Caught up in the idea of pinning him down and taking him, fully claiming him for her own instead of giving in to the inevitable and falling open before him, the _first_ first time she hadn't bothered to undress him nearly well enough. The second first time, his shirt needed to go. And the trousers. She wanted him all before her to see and touch and taste.

His willingness and approval of her actions didn't seem to vary much. He still gasped and shuddered in all the same places. He even held his breath.

But his kisses, sweet Circe! His kisses were much more divine. Hungry and assertive, while still naturally deferential toward her reactions. It didn't occur to him to let her have all the control or that she would want or demand it.

The second first time, he was adventurous and unwavering. His passion was thrillingly unrestrained.

And she knew it was silly, wrong, unhealthy to go on thinking so, but she couldn't help but savor the thought. He'd never had another lover. That he could still hold and grip and move with her with such skill, such precision, meant that somewhere, in some subconscious place, he remembered _her_.

What made it harder to suppress was the way he slept, curled around her snugly, possessively. In sleep he was so much the same. So goddamn needy. She couldn't help but relish it.

He wasn't the same, her Theodore, and yet he was no different.

They had taken his memory, but not his nature.

They took his wand, but not his magic.

They took that time: 29 weeks, 4 days, 7 hours, and a handful of minutes that added up to a spectacularly dysfunctional relationship.

They took those words and glances and struggles for normalcy.

Washing away that other self, that other life. Leaving behind that other place, that other time, only to have it begin again.

Another time.

Another life.

Another world.

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**A/N:** Apologies for the long wait. This sat on my hard drive for many months whilst I wibbled and attempted to rewrite the whole senario over, and over, and over until the lovely Diabolica betaed this last vignette and told me to stop my wibbling and obsessive rewriting because I had already finished the damn thing and it was good. I hope that you all feel the same. Please let me know what you think, good or bad? Not what you were expecting or hoping for?


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